September 09, 2010

(Some) economists’ topsy turvy world

Spain, where unemployment has risen to 20% and domestic demand has yet to recover, has just approved a labor reform law that makes it easier for employers to dismiss workers.

I hope someone from the IMF or OECD -- the two institutions responsible for convincing the Spaniards that such a reform is an urgent priority -- will explain to me how reducing the cost of firing workers can lower unemployment in the midst of a decline in labor demand.

Comments

If the cost of firing is lower, this reduces the reluctance of employers to hire new workers. You would not want to hire a new employee if it is very costly to get rid of him if conditions warrant so.

This should encourage firms to hire more workers (if the reform is believed to stay). Of course, some may take advantage and fire some workers as well. On balance, there should be a positive net effect.

I'm not from the IMF, but I do have some common sense and can easily explain this to you.

Imagine you're an owner of a restaurant in Madrid. Your business took a big hit with the recession, and you had to lay-off workers to continue to operate without continuing to incur heavy losses. The lay-offs cost you a lot of money because of the existing laws.

Now business is starting to pick up, but you don't have enough workers to meet the growing demand. You'd like to hire a few more workers, but you're still smarting from the last expensive lay-offs. If you hire new workers now, you know that you will either be:

1- stuck with them if there's another downturn, meaning you lose a lot of money; or
2- going to have to pay a lot of money to lay them off if there is a downturn.

So you decide to tough it out, wait a bit longer and see what happens rather than hiring them. The result is there are less hired workers, and your customers bitch a lot about the bad service. And they come back less to your restaurant and you get less business.

If, however, this new law passes and makes it easier to lay-off workers, your calculation changes. You can now take on a few unemployed workers on low wages and see what happens, because you know that your option now are:

1- If business continues to pick up, you keep them and eventually pay them more to maintain them.
2- If business faces a downturn, you can lay them off and pay relatively less.

So, you hire them.

Get it?

When you hire them, they work more, your business booms, your customers are happier, more customers come back, your workers make money and go and spend it in your neighbor's business, and he in turn comes back and spends it in yours.

When you allow people to contract freely, they will produce more and engage in transactions that make them better off. It's like magic, except it isn't.

I have no difficulty with firing costs increasing unemployment when labor demand picks up. My incomprehension has to do with how it could do this when labor demand remains depressed.

And remember if firing costs prevented some employers from dismissing workers on the downswing, employers (your restaurant owner in Madris, adam) must now have some extra workers that -- absent firing costs -- they wouldn't employ. So reducing those costs will simply make it easier for them to lay off those workers. Unless that is we see a real increase in aggregate demand, which we are not seeing.

Dani
Perhaps it would help to think of unemployment as a labour market problem. For any given level of aggregate demand it is reasonable to expect unemployment to be lower if labour market markets are more flexible. I think Keynes might even have agreed with that.

DR: "I have no difficulty with firing costs increasing unemployment when labor demand picks up. My incomprehension has to do with how it could do this when labor demand remains depressed."

I have a lot of difficulty understanding how you fail to understand this. Please elaborate why things would be different when labor demand is depressed? In both cases, the expected cost of hiring rises when firing is more expensive, this reduces the amount of hiring.

In fact, in most cases when labor demand is depressed, it is depressed in the first place by there being too many restrictions on hiring and firing costs like the minimum wage.

As for the excess workers that will be laid off because of the law... you're missing the point. Allowing the owner of the restaurant to lay them off will allow him to run a more profitable business. Keeping them on his books increases his chances of going bankrupt, and in the process having to lay-off all his other workers and himself.

If what you're suggesting made any sense, then it would be ideal for the government to stipulate a minimum wage of $1m an hour for everyone. According to your logic, this would create a society of millionaires. Any economist, however, would tell you that that would create a society of complete unemployment and destitution.

Businesses need to be able to carry out their decisions based on their own situation and their costs. Workers need to make their employment decisions based on their own situation. Any intervention by the government will simply be skewing people's decisions away from where they would ideally have them.

Most of the comments to Dani's post show absolutely nil empirical understanding of the Spanish labour market. It is true that the Spanish employers can hire more workers at lower wages if contracts are "flexibilized", especially if the old workers are booted out cheaply, and young workers are hired in until they become too expensive.
But is that necessarily a good thing? World experience shows the main effects are: (1) greater and greater socio-economic inequality between citizens, (2) a large mass of low-wage workers is created, who have no possibility to improve their position (3) a large fraction of the young skilled/qualified workers moves away to the country, region or city where they make the most money.
If there are too many restrictions on workers wages, then the state should also stop bailing out employers and giving them tax breaks - the employers run no risk because either they are insured, or the state gives them a handout, or the state bails them out if there is a real problem. Even if they make a loss, they don't go broke because they still have a large capital asset.
Unfortunately the bourgeois academics NEVER EVER consider the risks of workers in the labour market, only the risks of capitalists. That is why the discussion is completely unscientific and biased.

If there are too many restrictions on workers wages, then the state should also stop bailing out employers and giving them tax breaks - the employers run no risk because either they are insured, or Mermaid Wedding Dresses , or the state bails them out if there is a real problem. Even if they make a loss, they don't go broke because they still have a large capital asset.

In such a world, any money saved is not going to be spent because there is already excessive capacity. Reducing hiring costs in this state won't do anything when demand is still depressingly low. That will only make firing a worker easier and more unemployment and even lower aggregate demand and even less hiring. Reducing hiring/firing costs will only work in a state (and provide a price discovering mechanism) where employers are willing to hire and workers can switch works. Depressed aggregrate demand and liquidity trap are also the reason why austerity won't work.

It is truely baffling that any responsible government would pass such a law. The current crisis is not only a failure in economics (applying the knowledge in marco, sepcifically) but also democracy.

EXCELLENT. This is exactly what the entire EU needs to do: allow companies to fire employees and remove the completely nonsensical laws that deter companies from employing people.

At present I see so many Europeans flowing into London for employment although Britain has a fragile economy of their own. The same answer is always given to me when I ask why they come to London; no one is hiring in Europe. And why? Mainly because they can't fire a bad or redundant worker so they are apprehensive to hire one. Furthermore, the high costs of keeping an employee are ridiculous. Why should there even be a fee or cost added to a company for employing someone? Just absurd. Europe has set itself out to gradually becoming an unsustainable economy because this system punish any form of self sufficiency or enterprising, creating too much dependence on a government system which eventually victimses those who try to venture into enterprises, where jobs are created. They also need to lower all fees for people to become self-employed, to register a company, and allow self employed people to have the same rights to unemployment rights as everyone else - or why else should they pay their taxes? Instead the self employed are deprived of the fundamental rights every other European has.

I disagree to the feedback that easing up on employment laws will lower wages. First, how much lower can it really go? In Spain (where I used to live) wages have mainly gone sour/low for the very same reason housing costs are increasing and salaries decreasing in the rest of Europe: excess immigration labor from poor countries began offering their work for much lower wages thus competing with nationals. The truth is we don't need overseas labor, and never did. It has caused more damage and turmoil to our economy than anything else. The huge influx has created a surplus of workers versus jobs, so they accept to take lower wages. In addition, limited housing for an excess amount of people have brought living costs to absurd levels as property owners misuse the situation to maximize their profits. In Spain alone its not unusual that your monthly rent is higher than an entire months salary. If you manage, by sheer luck or connections to get anything cheaper, you often live below normal European living standards on par with the third world. Just completely ridiculous.

It always amazes me why it takes years and years for those in power to do something about issues that are plain common sense. Why did the Spanish have to wait for the economy to fall flat for their politicians to do what should have been done years ago? What we have in power today are too many pencil pushers with high degrees but little analytical skill, and too little common sense. Common sense alone will do far more good in society than a degree from Cambridge or Harvard....

Some of the feedback complain that current depressed demand for workers will increase with changes to employment regulations. I completely disagree.

We have two main factors that have caused the financial turmoil, and it doesn't originate with mortgages and banks. If I earn enough profits, the banks can give me as many loans as they wish. But if the job market is destroyed from other factors, I cant even afford to rent and certainly wont afford to pay credit cards or mortgages either.

The economy will never turn around to improve if we don't change the following:

1) EXCESS IMMIGRATION: Stop bringing in labor from the third world. We DO NOT NEED THEM. We would have far more jobs for our own people if we don't. Those job skills that are in shortage, can be filled by creating a fast trac and tailored training system to fill these positions. We absolutely do not need third world labor.

We also need to raise the minimum wage in Europe. For example, in UK at present, the minimum wage stand at around 6 GBP per hour. Of course most companies will exploit workers and keep within the legal rate. MW needs to be raised to 10 GBP per hour. There need to also be some reform that allow people with degrees to demand more. Night/weekend jobs need to be paid at double rates. Raising the minimum wage will eliminate avenues that companies often seek to get the possible cheapest labor. Minimum wage as it is now is not a sustainable wage and is therefore inhumane.
Companies that try to exploit the system (mostly in P.I.G.S countries) and pay below this wage, should be penalized heavily and their business license revoked for minimum 2 years.

2) CHINESE GOODS: Stop allowing China to flood our markets with imitation goods at a fraction of the price we can compete with. If China allows export of goods that violate copyrights, for example, ban imports completely for an entire year. That will keep them on their toes.

If its not possible to stop Chinese imports due to various delicate political agreements, then Chinese imports need to be taxed at rates to stabilize their cost to equal prices of locally manufactured goods. In this way Chinese goods cannot kill off our own production.
At present Chinese imports alone have completely salvaged manufacturing in many, if not most parts of the western world. It poses a more serious threat to our countries than terrorism as it is a silent force that destroys the economy from within the country.

Dani, I think the key issue is that it does not affect old contracts, only new ones done after passing the law. Otherwise, you are right that it might very likely have the effect of increasing unemployment in the short term.

It is amazing that the majority of the commentor here don't even touch on the issue of aggregate demand and excess capacity, and yet still manage to post in length.

Guys, no business is gonna hire workers just because the hiring cost is low. If there is no demand on the goods/services it produces/provides, it is still gonna fire people.

Spain cannot export its goods because it is pegged to the Euro with which Germany maintains a relatively undervalued real exchange rate vis-a-vis that of Spain (ie German goods are relatively cheap comparing to Spainish goods, and the destination of European goods is other European countries).

The solution to the current problem is still macro. Drop the Euro, get Germany to spend more, EU- wide stimulus etc. If China is to blame on the currency issue, Germany should not be getting away scratch free either.

Two years have passed and people still don't want to face up to the reality. This is truely the dark age of economics.

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